With the increasing costs of credit defaults, financial institutions as a whole have become a highly risk adverse group. Indeed, studies have shown that the likelihood of a credit default or foreclosure is strongly correlated with the amount of financial disclosure and analysis required by a lender. Conventionally, credit lenders have computers running programs for processing credit applicant information and, in response thereto, may approve or decline applications. Computer programs enable faster response to applications. However, the primary data stimulating these credit authorizations is historical debt information reported by credit bureaus. Thus, conventional credit programs poorly manage credit risk by always reacting to non-current and incomplete information.
Given that financial institutions are a risk adverse group, it is not unusual to expect that financial institutions may require a higher rate of return on a loan in order to compensate for the increased credit risk caused by authorizing credit based on historical and incomplete credit report information. A customer with impeccable credit may still receive a higher interest rate from a financial institution, for example, where the financial institution adds “interest rate buffer” to the loan to cover increased credit risk caused by historical and incomplete credit reports. Customers could provide financial institutions access to real-time asset and income data which could be used by financial institutions to more effectively manage credit risk and, for example, provide better credit lending risk management and liquidity. However, in these situations, customers may attempt to manipulate the system. In such a case, rigorous certification rules may need to be applied to financial account data, which may be used to determine completeness, accuracy and compliance of a customer's financial accounts.
These different variables create tremendous complexity for financial institutions, as they must decide what type of loan they wish to make based on all these considerations. They also limit the applicability of online banking networks to provide real-time electronic account certification at different financial institutions, thus requiring continued utilization of historical and incomplete credit reports, further denying them access to real-time electronically certified asset and debt account information, for example.
This disclosure relate generally to credit lending, credit reporting, credit authorization, and financial account analysis and more particularly, to systems and methods for electronically certifying and reporting financial data.